Water is an important natural resource and a vital component of the existence of life. Pollution of river systems is a major challenge for water resources (Viswanathan et al., 2015) since water quality is affected by several sources of pollution such as sewage discharge, industrial discharge and agricultural run-off (Khatri & Tyagi, 2015). About 80% of the total sewage water in developing countries is directly dumped, without any treatment, into surface water of lakes and rivers (Rehman et al., 2020). In many arid and semi-arid regions, natural freshwater resources are limited, whereas the demand is constantly increasing due to the industrial and population growth. The great challenge to meet water demands and manage its limited natural resources has led to the use of alternative irrigation sources (Alrajhi et al., 2015). Water scarcity can mainly be